their environment would not cause this to change unless the same sensory experiences would have caused their previous self to change.
I don’t see why this is necessarily true, unless you treat “altruism toward humanity” as a terminal goal.
When I was a very young child, I greatly valued my brightly colored alphabet blocks; but today, I pretty much ignore them. My mind had developed to the point where I can fully visualize all the interesting permutations of the blocks in my head, should I need to do so for some reason.
I don’t see why this is necessarily true, unless you treat “altruism toward humanity” as a terminal goal.
Well, yes. I think that’s the point. I certainly don’t only value other humans for the way that they interest me—If that were so, I probably wouldn’t care about most of them at all. Humanity is a terminall value to me—or, more generally, the existence and experiences of happy, engaged, thinking sentient beings. Humans qualify, regardless of whether or not uploads exist (and, of course, also qualify.
How do you know that “the existence and experiences of happy, engaged, thinking sentient beings” is indeed one of your terminal values, and not an instrumental value ?
I don’t see why this is necessarily true, unless you treat “altruism toward humanity” as a terminal goal.
When I was a very young child, I greatly valued my brightly colored alphabet blocks; but today, I pretty much ignore them. My mind had developed to the point where I can fully visualize all the interesting permutations of the blocks in my head, should I need to do so for some reason.
Well, yes. I think that’s the point. I certainly don’t only value other humans for the way that they interest me—If that were so, I probably wouldn’t care about most of them at all. Humanity is a terminall value to me—or, more generally, the existence and experiences of happy, engaged, thinking sentient beings. Humans qualify, regardless of whether or not uploads exist (and, of course, also qualify.
How do you know that “the existence and experiences of happy, engaged, thinking sentient beings” is indeed one of your terminal values, and not an instrumental value ?